Obama’s Pick for Nuclear Safety Cop Seen Shunning Confrontation

A geologist by training, Allison Macfarlane, 48, has questioned the suitability of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent repository for the nation’s nuclear waste. Photo: Evan Cantwell/George Mason University via Bloomberg

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Allison Macfarlane, the geologist and
expert on atomic waste picked to lead the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, is described by associates as someone who
can advocate positions without offending her opponents.

“She’s extremely friendly, affable and modest,” Andrew
Light, a colleague on the faculty at George Mason University,
said in an interview.

Such collegiality may help Macfarlane run the nuclear
safety agency, replacing Gregory Jaczko, who resigned amid
allegations from colleagues that he bullied staff and humiliated
female employees. Jaczko, who has denied the accusations, said
he will leave when a successor is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A geologist by training, Macfarlane, 48, is an expert on
the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, a critical issue as the
industry lacks a permanent waste site. She has questioned the
suitability of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a proposed dump site,
and helped research a paper backing “dry cask” storage at
power plants, which industry opposes. Former NRC employees
raised concerns that she lacked broad nuclear-power experience.

“The core of her expertise is on spent fuel and geologic
disposal issues,” said Frank von Hippel, professor of public
and international affairs at Princeton University, who has
contributed to papers on nuclear waste with Macfarlane.

Those who know Macfarlane called her a forceful advocate of
her positions. Colleagues at George Mason University in Fairfax,
Virginia, where she has taught environmental science since 2006,
describe her as collegial.

‘Very Thoughtful’

“She’s a very thoughtful, very intelligent, very
expressive person,” said Robert Jonas, chairman of George
Mason’s environmental sciences department.

She didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

President Barack Obama on May 24 said he intended to
nominate Macfarlane to replace Jaczko, 41. Clark Stevens, a
White House spokesman, called her a “highly regarded expert”
who “spent years analyzing nuclear issues.”

A potential impediment to confirmation was cleared away
when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and
Yucca opponent, said he would advance Macfarlane along with the
re-nomination of Kristine Svinicki, who joined during the George
W. Bush administration and is backed by Republicans. Her term
ends in June.

Industry Endorsement

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based group
whose members include Exelon Corp. of Chicago, Southern Co. of
Atlanta and Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, endorsed Macfarlane,
urging Congress to approve Macfarlane and Svinicki.

“She is a critic of Yucca Mountain,” said Light, also a
senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-leaning think tank in Washington.

Some former agency officials questioned whether
Macfarlane’s skills match the challenges as the panel conducts a
top-down review of safety rules for the nation’s 104 nuclear
reactors.

“She doesn’t have a background in nuclear power or
reactor-safety issues,” Paul Dickman, a chief of staff to
former NRC Chairman Dale Klein, said in a phone interview.

That may be a “hindrance in her ability to understand the
work of the commission,” he said.

‘Credible, Independent’

Klein, in an interview, questioned whether Macfarlane had
sufficient management experience to take over a commission with
more than 4,000 employees. Leading the NRC is not a place for
“on-the-job training,” he said.

The five-member commission needs someone who is “credible,
independent, in the middle,” Michael Wallace, senior adviser
for the U.S. Nuclear Energy Project at the Center for Strategic
& International Studies, said in a phone interview

Macfarlane was on Obama’s 15-person Blue Ribbon Commission
on America’s Nuclear Future, which issued a final report in
January. During deliberations, she advocated more vigorous
safety reviews for nuclear-waste storage sites, said Per
Peterson, chairman of the nuclear engineering department at the
University of California at Berkeley and a fellow panel member.

‘Positive Force’

“She does have good interpersonal skills,” Peterson said
in an interview. “My expectation is she will be a positive
force in terms of how she manages the commission.”

Macfarlane also is “very methodical” and a “fair arbiter
of the positions on both sides,” as shown during her experience
with the Blue Ribbon Commission, Light said.

Von Hippel and Macfarlane were two of eight writers of a
2003 academic paper warning that “dense packing” of spent fuel
rods in cooling pools increased the possibility of a meltdown in
an accident.

The nuclear-power industry has resisted accelerating the
transfer of spent fuel rods to so-called dry casks as an
unwarranted expense.

Dispersing the fuel rods would let more air circulate
between each, should the cooling pool lose water, von Hippel
said. While not eliminating the possibility a meltdown
altogether, he said greater air flow would reduce the risks.

The von Hippel-Macfarlane paper recommended all fuel rods
more than five years old be air-cooled in dry casks, he said.
Now some spent rods can sit in pools for two decades or longer,
he said.

‘Bottom Lines’

“Utilities think about it relative to their bottom lines
and view it as something to be avoided if at all possible,” he
said.

Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the nuclear group, said
“there is no safety basis to dictate movement into dry
storage.” The 2003 article prompted a rebuttal from the NRC,
which said it overstated the risks of “wet storage.”

Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs at Harvard University, where
Macfarlane was a fellow, described the nominee as a good
colleague who wasn’t motivated by ideology.

“She’s very factually oriented,” Allison said in an
interview. “That’s the thing about scientists. If the facts
change, they change their minds.”